Though Warzone only landed in March, Infinity Ward and Raven Software have already changed a lot about the Gulag in particular. The Gulag has historically been available in any mode — solos, trios or quads — but on May 8th, developers removed it from solos. The Gulag was replaced by a new Stimulus Solos mode, which allows players to buy their way back into the match. It costs $4,500 to respawn in Stimulus Solos, but half of your Cash disappears when you die, meaning players need $9,000 in order to secure a respawn. 

All of this places an emphasis on collecting Cash throughout the main game, and developers argue that Stimulus Solos make Verdansk feel fuller, more dangerous and more alive.

“That leads to people carrying less, doing more contracts, trying to acquire money, and more action,” Hodge said. “That was really the genesis of that mode, can we just skip the Gulag and get straight to the action? And what would that do to gameplay? That definitely made it more frenetic, lots of people coming back, lots of revenge fights, which are fun. I think as we continue, you’ll see us playing more and more with respawn mechanics.”

Infinity Ward and Raven Software aren’t done tweaking the Gulag, Stimulus Solos or any other part of Warzone. The game is in live development and updates are rolling out fast.

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“We look at popularity, and the Stimulus one was doing really well so we left it on through the weekend and further,” Cecot said. “But we’ll keep rotating things in and out. Eventually we do want to get to the point where we have kind of like our core BR and then we have our limited-time mode that we’re running. We’re focused and delicate about what we’re turning on, what we’re turning off.”

Take stun grenades, for instance. There’s a contingent of players who despise the inclusion of stun grenades in randomized Gulag loadouts, arguing they’re too powerful for such a fast-paced, close-quarters battle.

“I always get bit in the ass for commenting on this, but some of the elegance of BR is a little bit of the randomness,” Cecot said. “So if you can get a player who gets that lucky stun, then maybe they win a fight that they didn’t have a chance to win otherwise. It’s a little bit of variability. There are more tactics in there. But we’re also switching up the guns in Gulag, I think even with the next update.”

That last part, at least, is true. Infinity Ward and Raven Software released an update for Warzone this week that changes the loadout options in Gulag matches, now randomly selecting from a lineup of six ARs and four SMGs, no stun grenades in sight. The game is continually changing, and in the process, so is the definition of the battle royale genre.